My inbox has been full of this issue this week, and I see it mostly as a tempest in a teapot. But since there is an interest, I’m putting this up for discussion. I can understand the situation, running the most viewed climate related blog, where I’ve noted that a small minority of people can cause a lot of trouble and waste a lot of time. Those people often go astray of the site policy for WUWT, and sometimes find themselves banned for repeated bad behavior. Those that might have contentious views but aren’t intractable zealots learn to work within policy and stick around, and contribute to debate here. That said, a “blanket ban” just wouldn’t work nor would it be sensible. Imagine if a single WUWT moderator decided to make a blanket policy change here. -Anthony
From Fox News:
Critics are slamming Reddit over a single moderator’s decision to ban climate-change skeptics from contributing to its science forum, attacking the move as “political censorship.”
In an op-ed titled “Reddit’s science forum banned climate deniers. Why don’t all newspapers do the same?” Nathan Allen — who described himself a Ph.D. chemist for a major chemical company and a moderator on Reddit’s “/r/science” forum — explained his decision to wipe comments from some users he dismissed as “problematic.”
“These people were true believers, blind to the fact that their arguments were hopelessly flawed, the result of cherry-picked data and conspiratorial thinking,” Allen said in his article, which is posted on Grist.org. “They had no idea that the smart-sounding talking points from their preferred climate blog were, even to a casual climate science observer, plainly wrong.”
Allen went on to attack climate-change skeptics further, saying that evidence to support their position “simply does not exist” and that such people are “enamored by the emotionally charged and rhetoric-based arguments of pundits on talk radio and Fox News.”
‘[Climate skeptics are] enamored by the emotionally charged … arguments of pundits on talk radio and Fox News.’
– Reddit moderator Nathan Allen
Finally, Allen called for other news outlets to follow his example, asking “if a half-dozen volunteers can keep a page with more than 4 million users from being a microphone for the antiscientific, is it too much to ask for newspapers to police their own editorial pages as proficiently?”
The move has drawn accusations of hypocrisy, as Reddit claims to be a haven for free speech and debate. The site describes itself as a place “friendly to thought, relationships, arguments, and to those that wish to challenge those genres.”
Brendan O’Neill, in a blog post for the UK Daily Telegraph, said Reddit has “ripped its own reputation to shreds,” and described the move as “political censorship, designed to silence the expression of dissent about climate-change alarmism on one of the Internet’s most popular user-generated forums.”
James Delingpole, columnist, climate skeptic and author of “The Little Green Book Of Eco Fascism,” was even louder in his criticism.
“The greenies — and their many useful idiots in the liberal media — are terrified of open debate on climate-change because the real world evidence long ago parted company with their scientifically threadbare theory,” Delingpole told FoxNews.com, arguing that Allen’s tactic is part of a “classic liberal defense mechanism: If the facts don’t support you, then close down the argument.”
Victoria Taylor, Reddit’s director of communications, told FoxNews.com that while it was Allen’s prerogative to ban climate-change skeptics from “/r/science,” his statements “do not reflect the views of Reddit as a whole, or other science or climate-oriented subreddits.”
More here:
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/12/19/critics-blast-reddit-over-climate-change-skeptic-ban/
h/t to WUWT reader “Pete”.
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dbstealey says:
“The sockpuppet blankflankcelestia”
Sockpuppetry is the use of more than one screen name specifically for the purposes of having others believe you are two separate people (generally this means either evading a ban or posting as if you were two people in agreement, usually including replying to your own post at least once… incidentally, simply using an additional account as a “throwaway” to post about something sensitive and totally unrelated to your usual postings is not sockpuppetry but rather just pseudonymity). The idea that a username is a sockpuppet of a real life person, though easy to imagine, is not the proper usage of the term in Internet parlance. I have not used another username on this site, thus I am not a sockpuppet.
Also, a TL;DR (which stands for Too Long, Didn’t Read and is a synonym for summary) of the second paragraph of my last post is that I think that there is a small amount (0.75C per century at the very most, and that is assuming the recent string of large solar cycles had no effect on the climate) of human-induced climate change, but it is nowhere near a large enough issue to warrant the ready-fire-aim preservationist approach being proposed by Gore, Obama, and others on the far left. Such an approach would only be warranted if a sea ice area minimum of zero were to ever be observed.
++++++++++++
[Reply: “blankflankcelestia” says above, “I have not used another username on this site, thus I am not a sockpuppet.”
Moderators can see if someone is posting under different names. In this case the same source posted under the names: “blankflankcelestia”, “celestiaisfalling”, and “okie333”. That person has been posting here since early last June. ~mod.]
“Moderators can see if someone is posting under different names. In this case the same source posted under the names: “blankflankcelestia”, “celestiaisfalling”, and “okie333″. That person has been posting here since early last June.”
The second of the three names you mentioned is the original name I used to make this comment. I thought of a more witty one afterward and announced via my username tag that I had changed it to my current one (i.e., specifically mentioned that I am the same person). I am currently staying at the house of a very conservative friend who showed me this article in an attempt to get me to stop using Reddit, his username may be the third one you mentioned.
[Understood. Mod]
“If you learnt it in school, it’s probably a lie.”
And a tapping (out) point.
Wikipedia has a similar rule about requiring citations. But its foundations aren’t as strong as it seems. When a paper is flawed, or its conclusions aren’t fully justified by its “findings,” there isn’t necessarily a paper or letter to point that out. The scientific literature seems focused on publishing findings and counter-findings, and sometimes literature reviews, but not on hosting critiques and defenses of papers based on mere reasoning. Thus, requiring contrarian arguments to cite a paper supporting their position puts them at an unfair disadvantage.
Consider the Climategate emails. Where are the papers in the scientific literature minutely critiquing (or defending) those emails? Or consider UNIPOCC’s recent AR5. Multiple threads here on WUWT pointed out flaws in it, such as obfuscations, internal contradictions, hidden assumptions, one-sided examination of the evidence, etc. All a reddit poster could do would be to link to those threads–there are no (or few) scientific-literature papers containing those criticisms.
Or consider the papers here by amateur scientists like Eschenbach & Tisdale (among others). Their analyses are as “professional” as one is likely to find in the academic literature. Just because they have chosen not to jump through the hoops of getting published shouldn’t mean that a commenter who would like to cite them can’t do so. They should be treated at least as indulgently as IPOCC treats “gray literature.”
I’m sad to face the reality that many Redditt folk may never see anything beyond the manufactured hysteria by the AGW folk, but I agree:
Integrity, integrity, integrity.
Recently, a friend was lamenting her need to take a statin drug for high blood pressure. “Have you heard about Red Yeast Rice?”
“Yes, but I could never take that!” she said, in a greatly affected and haughty manner. “You realize, you can never tell what’s in those pills!”
Big pharma won that round. …..Lady in Red
blankflankcelestia says:
December 21, 2013 at 3:04 pm
“I never said such ideas are necessarily wrong, just that they have not been proven and as such cannot be used as an argument to support a theory.”
An argument only becomes valid after being approved by government scientists? How very nice for the government; and for reddit, the government’s voice.
blankflankcelestia says:
“An argument only becomes valid after being approved by government scientists?”
First off, most scientific journals are run by private organizations. The term “peer-reviewed” is used for a reason, that reason being that the people reviewing the scientific work are other scientists. The review process provides credibility to the work since it has passed muster with several other experts in the field rather than just being accepted by the individuals writing it, who may mean well and may be experts in the field themselves but might not catch every flaw in their research. While the arguments presented in books or independent publications may be scientifically valid, they also may very well not be in ways which someone uninitiated would find to be very credible but an expert would instantly be able to identify. This is especially important with statistical tests as there are plenty of ways to modify (or fail to modify) data that would result in a more desired conclusion but still seem perfectly valid to a layman. Peer review is like the Carfax of science; it doesn’t catch absolutely everything, and there are plenty of “non-lemon” papers outside of the system, but you are much more likely to be able to know you’re looking at reliable science if it’s been reviewed. Just to give an example, there are some very interesting ways to prove that two different numbers (usually 0 and 1) are equal, in particular the one involving integration by parts seems bulletproof, but if the proof were set before experts in mathematics, chances are very high at least one of them could quickly tell you that the proofs are invalid and reject the paper.
Like all leaders of movements designed to fail every word you say has the sound of reversal of reality. reddit doesn’t have authority to command that anything not approved of by living scientists isn’t valid.
Claiming that the very well known method of spreading truth in face of a small group of determined profiteers – spreading truth through anonymity – is detrimental to spreading of truth – that’s more of you, sounding like your favorite chemistry subject’s vodka.
What you’re doing is trying to justify reddit hiding so far behind the censorship wall no truths come through that might disturb the echo chamber.
I don’t wish you good luck with that, I wish you what it deserves, and what it deserves everywhere people think they can block truth forever through lying more and more stridently.
The entire PURPOSE of internet discussion is that it’s utterly anonymous. In fact the very people known in history who have done the most to HARM truth
have insisted everyone reveal who they are, to whatever degree they could do it.
Obviously you’re not fully adapted to adult discourse where being right matters or you’d be too embarrassed to drizzle such obsolete, Inquisition-age trash as a philosophy of science outlook.
=======
blankflankcelestia says:
December 21, 2013 at 1:16 pm
Sockpuppets (accounts specifically made to evade bans or provide the appearance of a false consensus or a “larger army” than actually exists) are exactly what this moderator is claiming are the major problem users that caused him to make the decision that he unofficially made. With advice like this being suggested by multiple users of this website, it is not surprising that their viewpoint is being discounted by the moderators.
blankflankcelestia says:
December 21, 2013 at 6:38 pm
“Peer review is like the Carfax of science; it doesn’t catch absolutely everything,”
You mean sometimes a discovery slips through? Oh dang.
BTW, have you swallowed a telephone book as a kid? Some monumental verbosity. Sorry, don’t know the REDDIT abbreviation to bring that across, you mentioned it some lightyears of letters back in time.
People who insist everyone who speaks identify themselves so they can be found and harassed are the leaders of * * *the most evil movements in humankind’s history.* * *
Is it any wonder we find it to be a favorite tool of government grant and alternernative energy scammers?
Here’s a good comparison of the people in history who were for anonymity vs those against it:
And this is just a SHORT list. There are LOTS of smaller groups identically aligned.
The Inquisition: people had to identify themselves and subject themselves to any form of abuse authorities wanted.
Religious revolutionaries: wanted to simply be able to share and compare truths, bring Christianity out of the “must apply for permission to speak” age.
The Soviet Union: all speech must be approved.
The Third Reich: not exactly all speech must be approved but it damned well better not find itself disapproved. Toward the end: all speech must be approved.
The people against United States Civil Rights: find out who they are, where they live, capture/terrorize.
The people against women being able to escape abusive husbands: “That’s my wife and I have a right to know who she’s talking to.”
The people running climate scams: “We’ll control what peer review even is!”
There’s no making the bell UN ring when someone starts claiming they aren’t going to let people have a dissenting opinion any more. The bell rung, an while all the jack boots, always have the same old reasons,
It’s the people who believe in this criminality disguised weakly as voodoo who do it and who did it, and who are mortified at facing public opinion with such loose intellectual bowel movement, passed off as scientific soup for the truth searching soul.
It can’t pass the most cursory of glances and that’s why everyone who believes in it looks earnestly forward to the day when people actually stop glancing at it, noticing it’s all backward, and commenting.
For anyone who’s studied history, forcing your enemies to self identify is synonymous with terror movements. Al Gore’s movement, his political one, is a terror movement. It appeals to people who like to frighten people, herd people, – terrorize and demoralize them.
The pseudo-scientists who claim their science is even real don’t have answers, all they have are government jobs or some kind of connection to energy market profiteering. Nobody who’s in a real industry can duck criticism this way, the liabilities spread out too many directions.
Therefore the entire global warming scam isn’t science. It’s above-the-law fraud that avoids examination at every turn then demands respect for having created victims of society.
Creating fake victims through scams then claiming to help save the people they target is one of the fundamental underpinnings of the methodology of true sociopaths. People who intend to do evil things to other people. Create victim: demand respect and elicit gratitude for saving. Make pretense of having special insight through association with authorities or process.
I invite anyone to go look it up and compare the scientific blog editors world wide with the profile of the sociopath. It is bone chilling and more than that, it’s real.
blankflankcelestia says:
“I am currently staying at the house of a very conservative friend who showed me this article in an attempt to get me to stop using Reddit, his username may be the third one you mentioned.”
Just a thought: I wonder how many people these days, [especially internet blog moderators!] do not have their own computer, or iPad, or any other internet device — and have to borrow someone else’s to make a comment?
Or conversely, is “blankflankcelestia” staying at someone’s house — someone who doesn’t have their own computer or internet access, and so he is forced to use hers to make comments — without her knowledge??
The excuses given by “blankflankcelestia” don’t pass the smell test, IMHO. I think she’s been caught being a sockpuppet. Simple as that.
“…some lightyears of letters back in time.” (Dirk H. at 6:51pm today)
LOL
Folks – just go to Reddit and see for yourself. It’s one of the worst sites I’ve ever seen. It amazes me that anyone takes them seriously at all. I couldn’t care less what their editorial policy is – just dump them! Not worth anyone’s time…
[Snip. This site’s Policy does not allow commenters to label others with the pejorative “deniers”, an insult that takes the place of critical thinking. ~ mod.]
The sadness, Frank K., is that many many fools will read only this perspective: Reddit.
(The good news, perhaps, is that many who ask questions, are curious, will be “edited/deleted” at Reddit and begin to look elsewhere…. confused. This happened to me, years ago, at RealClimate. Hell, I didn’t know anything, but my questions, apparently, were too pointed, and intense, in my attempt to learn. Quickly, sadly, my questions disappeared: the black hole of RealClimate. ….I began to wonder.
(…on another note, ClimateAudit had little time for my lack of sophistication, mostly. But, bless ’em, they tried. …and helped, as best they could in the midst of some intense statistical analysis.
(Integrity, integrity, integrity will win out. There are some interesting folk who will make it into the history books about this chapter in the understanding of the world’s climate. There will be Darth Vadars and Luke Skywalkers. ….and we know who is which.) ….Lady in Red
All I know is if I were his division VP at Dow and cared about whether his production was going to increase my stock options or sink them, I would be very carefully reviewing his products and assumptions for any reviews he did on product lines. This type of thinking tends to pollute the scientific output of those exhibiting it. Dow can’t afford to carry someone who is suppressing contrary science, the lawsuits can be bankrupting even for a large multinational. I think I will be reviewing my holdings in Dow for possible thinning!
David,
Before your comment was snipped I noticed that you say there is no way to refute “a warming globe”, or similar words.
You are wrong, and you should spend some time here rather than at the anti-science blog Reddit. You will learn some facts, such as the fact that the planet is not warming.
Those are six [6] separate, empirical measurements showing conclusively that global warming has stopped. If you read WUWT for a while, you will get an honest education. Because clearly, you have been misinformed. And CO2 does not have anything measurable to do with temperature.
Having read thro the comments, it strikes me as funny.
At least Allen at Reddit is honest in his censorship, on the rest of the “True Message” sites, critical comments are just put on super secret moderation.
One of the best methods I have seen used, was the sites where your comment, shows up when you revisit, but if you check in from a different address, you find you were never there.
I much prefer Anthony’s approach, and have developed an appreciation for this site’s ethical standards.
Reddit is bigger than you think. It would do all of us good to spend some time on the /science
subreddit and defend the truth. It is amazing what they are doing over there. Please sign up at their site and help stop the destruction of science.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/how-big-is-reddit-very-very-big-indeed/
Mike O, you have apparently never tried to have a discussion over there.
Poptech, I have and they deleted my comments on most of them. I encourage everyone to do the same. They won’t delete all of them. There is still a long way to go on this debate. Or am I waiting my time…
just come over to the climate skeptics subreddit. the warmers show up there to troll the place. we could use some knowledgeable commenters.
http://www.reddit.com/r/climateskeptics/new/
BANIT